Subject: AP: Indonesia Moves E. Timor Referendum Up
A Day To Aug. 7
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 10:26:24 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Received from Joyo Indonesian
News:
May 21, 1999 Indonesia Moves E. Timor Referendum Up A Day To Aug. 7
Dow Jones Newswires
JAKARTA (AP)--The U.N.-supervised referendum on the future of East Timor has been moved
up a day to Aug. 7 to avoid a conflict with a Christian holiday, Indonesian Minister of
State Secretary Muladi said Friday.
The vote will give the troubled territory a choice between becoming an autonomous state
within predominantly Muslim Indonesia or full independence.
Some fear escalating violence could postpone or sink the vote that is to be supervised
by the United Nations under an agreement between Portugal, East Timor's former colonial
master, and Indonesia, which invaded in 1975.
It was not immediately clear whether Portugal, a predominantly Roman Catholic country,
agreed with the new date. Speaking in Macau, Foreign Minister Jaime Gama said Indonesia
could not "unilaterally change" an international agreement.
But Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said the issue was not the day, but "whether
there are conditions for the referendum to be held."
"Portugal will never accept a ballot if it is not held in absolute freedom and
with no intimidation," Guterres told reporters in Lisbon.
The U.N. plans to send about 300 foreign police officers to the half-island territory
to advise Indonesian police, who will have responsibility for law and order. Hundreds of
poll monitors and other U.N. officials also will be sent in.
Indonesia said Thursday it will allow Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta to visit
for the first time in more than two decades for unprecedented talks with jailed East
Timorese guerrilla leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao.
The meeting is supposed to take place in Jakarta sometime before the referendum.
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